Creating Grievances
How Radical Right Parties Undermine Democratic Governance

The Political Behaviour Colloquium, EUI 2025

Tim Wappenhans

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Research Training Group DYNAMICS

March 18, 2025

Christian Lüth

AfD press spokesperson 2013-2020

Lüth
Christian Lüth and Alexander Gauland, ©dpa

We discussed this with Gauland [AfD Party Leader] at length: The worse things are going for Germany, the better for the AfD (…). If everything was going well right now (…), the AfD would be at three percent. We don’t want that. That’s why we need to come up with a strategy.

Overview

Motivation

  • democracy depends on effective governance
  • when govt’s fail to deliver, people lose political trust
    • opportunity for challengers

Research question

Do RRPs actively create government failure
by obstructing public goods provision?

Overview (cont.)

Case: RRPs in local govt’

  • local infrastructure projects are highly visible
  • prime target for obstruction

Empirical strategy

  • German county-level spending and process data (2006–2019)
  • DiD, elite interviews, QTA

Findings

  • AfD obstructs infrastructure investment through procedural tactics

Gap

RRP success

  • political opportunity structures
    • external shocks and crises
    • social change
    • longstanding cleavages
    • poor government performance
  • issue entrepreneurs
    • beneficiaries of developments they can address and amplify
  • but do they actively shape their own opportunities?
    • obstructing democratic governance

Challenges

  • obstruction hard to measure, limited data
    • focus on US
    • for Europe, see qualitative study on clerks (Bell 2018)

Theoretical Argument

Geographies of Discontent

RRP success

Obstructionism

Mainstream parties

  • obstruction to negotiate policy changes
    • bargaining tool to extract concessions
  • obstruction as performance
  • procedural tactics: delays, amendments, prolonged debates (Bell 2018)

Populist parties

RRPs’ Incentive Structure

Incentives

  • no coalition prospects Scope Conditions
  • message: elites are captured, institutional dysfunction

Objectives

  • policy compromise
  • produce governance failure: make message resonate more

Expectations

  • obstruct local public goods provision using procedual tactics

Empirics

The Case

German counties

  • provide essential public goods
    • roads, schools, hospitals, bridges, bike lanes…
  • high level of policy discretion
    • variation
  • local politics less visible than national politics
    • easier for RRPs to obstruct without voter backlash

Data

Radical right representation

  • official election results

Government performance

  • real investment per capita

Democratic processes

  • elite interviews

  • protocols (Niederschriften)

Data

Radical right representation

  • official election results ✅

Government performance

  • real investment per capita ✅

Democratic processes

  • elite interviews 🚧

  • protocols (Niederschriften) 🚧

Estimation

Data

  • 400 counties, 2006–2019
  • 5,450 county*years
  • outcome: county real investment p.c.
  • treatment: AfD in council Treatment Cohorts

Design

  • staggered DiD (+TWFE, MC)
  • additional time-varying covariates
    • median age, pop. density, tax revenue, and available funds

Results

Event Study

Event Study (MC)

ATT Estimates

Mechanism

Qualitative Evidence

Semi-structured interviews

  • local politicians
  • across political spectrum
  • veterans experiencing change
  • data generation ongoing

Interviews

Head of finance committee, Hesse

They [the AfD] probably introduce the highest numbers of proposals. And that is for a small to medium caucus, mind you. […] Their proposals are annoying. Because they insist on debating them, every single time. And this costs time and nerves, of course.

  • dilatory tactics creating bureaucratic backlog

Quantitative Evidence: Niederschriften

Hard facts

  • length

Quantitative Evidence: Niederschriften

Hard facts

  • length
  • proposals

Quantitative Evidence: Niederschriften

Hard facts

  • length
  • proposals
  • voting results

Quantitative Evidence: Niederschriften

Hard facts

  • length
  • proposals
  • voting results
  • amendments

Quantitative Evidence: Niederschriften

Hard facts

  • length
  • proposals
  • voting results
  • amendments

Soft facts

  • content of proposals

Quantitative Evidence: Niederschriften

Hard facts

  • length
  • proposals
  • voting results
  • amendments

Soft facts

  • content of proposals

Processing

  • OpenAI API 🤖

First Glimpse

Future Content Analysis

  • content of proposals
    • is AfD submitting over-proportionally more?
    • what kind of proposals struck down?
  • content of amendments
    • is AfD shaping policy?
  • number requests to speak
    • is AfD talking over-proportionally more or longer?

Alternative Explanations

Alternative Explanations

Other mechanisms

  • complicated bargaining
    • too many parties complicate legislative procedures
  • electoral threat
    • parties accomodate fiscally conservative challenger

Compound treatments

  • simultaneous change on state level

Placebo Outcomes

Placebo Treatment: Liberal FDP

Compound Ttreatment

Takeaway 🥡

Takeaway 🥡

Results

  • AfD undermines government performance
    • reduces local public goods provision ✅
  • mechanism
    • obstructionism ✅
  • alternative explanations
    • complicated bargaining ❌
    • electoral threat ❌
    • compound treatments ❌



Hit me up

📬 tim.wappenhans@hu-berlin.de

🌐 timwappenhans.com

🦋 @timwapps.bsky.social

References

Bell, Lauren C. 2018. “Obstruction in Parliaments: A Cross-National Perspective.” The Journal of Legislative Studies 24 (4): 499–525. https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2018.1544694.
Black, Ryan C., Anthony J. Madonna, and Ryan J. Owens. 2011. “Obstructing Agenda-Setting: Examining Blue Slip Behavior in the Senate.” The Forum 9 (4). https://doi.org/10.2202/1540-8884.1476.
Cremaschi, Simone, Nicola Bariletto, and Catherine E. De Vries. 2024. “Without Roots: The Political Consequences of Collective Economic Shocks.” OSF. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/brx38.
Cremaschi, Simone, Paula Rettl, Marco Cappelluti, and Catherine E. De Vries. 2024. “Geographies of Discontent: How Public Service Deprivation Increased Far-Right Support in Italy.” OSF Preprints. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/5s2cu.
Gieczewski, Germán, and Christopher Li. 2022. “Dynamic Policy Sabotage.” American Journal of Political Science 66 (3): 617–29. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12609.
Hirsch, Alexander V., and Jonathan P. Kastellec. 2022. “A Theory of Policy Sabotage.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 34 (2): 191–218. https://doi.org/10.1177/09516298221085974.
Louwerse, Tom, and Simon Otjes. 2019. “How Populists Wage Opposition: Parliamentary Opposition Behaviour and Populism in Netherlands.” Political Studies 67 (2): 479–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321718774717.
Otjes, Simon, and Tom Louwerse. 2021. “Do Anti-Elitist Parties Use Their Parliamentary Tools Differently?” Parliamentary Affairs 74 (3): 704–21. https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsab027.
Patty, John W. 2016. “Signaling Through Obstruction.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (1): 175–89. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12202.
Valentim, Vicente. 2024. The Normalization of the Radical Right: A Norms Theory of Political Supply and Demand. New York: Oxford University Press.
Woon, Jonathan, and Sarah Anderson. 2012. “Political Bargaining and the Timing of Congressional Appropriations.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 37 (4): 409–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-9162.2012.00056.x.
Ziller, Conrad, and Sara Wallace Goodman. 2020. “Local Government Efficiency and Anti-Immigrant Violence.” The Journal of Politics 82 (3): 895–907. https://doi.org/10.1086/707399.

Appendix

Infrastructure spending across time Estimation

Treatment cohorts Estimation

Treatment cohorts Estimation

Treatment cohorts Estimation

Treatment cohorts Estimation

Scope Conditions

  • ongoing normalization of RRPs
  • restricted to period in life course of RRPs?
  • most pronounced in activation stage (Valentim 2024)?
Lüth